Graça / Play in the city

Play in the city Designing cities with children

Author: Ana Catarina Graça, University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL)

Supervisor: Alexandra Paio, University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL); Marcos L. Rosa, Instituto Europeo di Design, São Paulo

Research stage: intermediate doctoral stage

Category: Extended abstract

This extended abstract will present a part of the ongoing doctoral research, entitled “AUGI (Urban Areas of Illegal Genesis) - (re) living to (re) integrate - Micro practices for (re)qualification of public space", where a strategy of (re)qualification of public space in Urban Areas of Illegal Genesis (UAIG) through the introduction of an intervention methodology based on collaborative participatory processes with children.

In Portugal, in the 60s of the last century, develops an alternative housing, transversal to the all Portuguese territory, at the margin of the formal market, as a result of migratory movements that took place on the outskirts of cities. This phenomenon reached a large scale, especially in the metropolitan area of Lisbon with the creation of several clandestine neighborhoods, today designated by UAIG. This demand for housing led to a spontaneous and unplanned occupation, directing all the care and concerns of people to the construction of their homes with the main intention of appropriating the largest possible private area, neglecting the public space of these areas, which is assumed as an interstitial space between lots or dwellings, uncharacterized by the lack or insufficiency of infrastructure, equipment and green spaces, which make public life and social interactions between the inhabitants unfeasible. Thus, its absence conditions the qualification of the territory, its use, and the well-being of the community, and the public space is a structuring element of the urban mesh and community life. Borja (2003) emphasizes that public space defines the quality of a city by stating that it is not only an indicator of the urban quality of a place, but also a privileged instrument in administrative policy to make a city, serving to clarify peripheries, produce new centralities, as well as to unite and aggregate urban mesh.

Public space is much more than a formal and spatial definition, it is determined by behaviors that aggregate collective urban experiences (Arendt, 1958) and considered a factor of identity, memory and community cohesion (Jacobs, 1961) (Lefebvre, 1974) (Whyte, 1980). Public space is a structuring element of urban organization and community life, its absence or non-qualification conditions the vision of the territory, its use, the proper functioning and well-being of the community.

The quality of the public space allows to promote the cohesion of the place, create new centralities, among others (Borja and Muxi, 2000). The quality of public space essentially depends on the analysis of the attitudes and behaviors of users in the space, being necessary to understand which characteristics transform spaces into pleasant places, being essential to look at the diagram of the place, from the organization Project for Public Space, which can be used as a guide and essential tool in the evaluation of public space.

The participatory process has been presented as a way of form the social and political dimension of projects of collective interest, valuing the opinion and desire of users, in order to guarantee greater citizenship and democracy in the design of public spaces. The right to the city (Lefebvre, 1968) is to make the city a human right, and Lefebvre is the first person to affirm that not only architects, urban planners, engineers, among others, have the right to take powers over the city, but also the common citizen has this same right in decision-making. By participating in the city, we are involved in its change and in the way we will relate to it in the future, through the decision-making that is made during the participatory processes. The architect's role should be an integral part of a joint process of open dialogue in decision making.

The use of appropriate tools is a way of engaging and involving participants in the participation process, that is, people are trained in how to get involved in the participatory process to effect social changes, controlling the knowledge produced by participation (Whyte, 1980). In recent years, tools, methods, techniques and toolkits have been developed that allow access to the knowledge and experience of the community.

In participation, a toolkit represents a set of tools that allows anyone to collaborate in the creation process, through the manipulation of physical elements in two and/or three dimensions (Sanders & Stappers, 2014). The tools and instructions that make up the toolkit depend on the objective and context of the exercise (Sanders, et al, 2010), and the results of the participatory process derive from the use of the toolkit by the participant. Toolkits serve not only as a means of expressing community ideas, but as a means of raising awareness, structuring and evoking ideas within or among people (Sanders & Stappers, 2014), using tools manipulated in group activities.

However, there is a new look at the public space in favor of the community, because it is in it that people transit, and in turn, it is the people who give life to cities (Jacobs, 1961), and participatory processes are decisive for the quality of life of the place, because from the appropriation of public space, people end up establishing a relationship of connection and recognition with the place.

The involvement of children in the search for answers, designing solutions for public spaces, is the look at the future of the city through the eyes of children, and there are several authors who have produced a set of tools - guides, toolkits and projects, for the promotion of children's participation in decision-making and planning of the city's public spaces, and a series of children's books that portray the city through the eyes of children.

It is intended to present a set of possibilities of participatory tools - toolkits - with children, which can be applied in the design of public space in clandestine neighborhoods, focused on creating more fun, engaging and inclusive cities for communities. This set of tools led to the need to build a taxonomy, based on interventions in public spaces with the participation of children, cataloging them in categories and subcategories, allowing them to be identified and classified, creating a broad and organized reading of the importance of these good practices, in the transformation of public space, with children being the main protagonists. There are a number of children's books that also portray the city in the eyes of children, especially in the public space, and which are also fundamental for looking at the future of cities.

This set of participatory tools allowed me to collect ways to represent, map, build, edit, use, collaborate and occupy public space in the city, later leading to the creation of my own toolkits for children – Participate: Your Idea. Your Place -, which were tested in two clandestine neighborhoods in the municipality of Cascais, giving priority to children's rights in public policies and programs, looking to the future of these clandestine neighborhoods through the eyes of the child. This extended abstract presents one of the parts of the ongoing investigation, with a complex methodology, in which the final objective is to develop a theoretical-practical investigation informed by good urban practices and carry out a pilot experience to assess a set of generic normative procedures applicable to requalification of the public space of the UAIG, having children as the main actors in decision-making.

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Literature

Arendt, Hannah (1958): The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Borja, J. / Muxì, Z (2000): El espaço público, ciudad y ciudadania. Barcelona: Ed. Electra.

Jacobs, J. (1992): The death and life of great American cities. New York: Vintage Books.

Lefèbvre, Henri (2001): O Direito à Cidade. São Paulo: Centauro Editora.

Montaner, J. M. / Muxi, Z. (2011): Arquitectura y Política. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili.

SANDERS, Elizabeth, et al. (2010): A Framework for Organizing the Tools and Techniques of Partici- patory Design. Sydney: Australia, http://www.maketools.com/articles-papers/PDC2010ExploratoryFrameworkFinal.pdf

SANDERS, Liz / STAPPERS, Pieter (2014): From designing to co-designing to collective dreaming: three slices in time. Interactions, http://interactions.acm.org/ar... ing-to-collective-dreaming-three-slices-in-time.

Whyte, W.H. (2001): The social life of small urban spaces. New York: Project for Public Spaces